Best online service for managing corporate travel

There are a million ways to reserve accommodation online. As a buyer of corporate accommodation, which of these online services is best for you?

05.06.2017 - Michael Huotari

There are a million accommodation options out there, and there a million more ways to reserve accommodation online. Accommodation providers – including hotels, hostels and serviced apartment providers – have their websites, there are corporate travel reservation platforms, sharing economy platforms, meta-search websites and online travel agencies (OTA's).

As a buyer of corporate accommodation, which of these online services is best for you?

The answer is: It depends on your needs. Now, that may sound like a politician’s answer, but it’s the truth. To figure out your needs, take a moment to answer these questions.

Ask yourself these 4 questions:

How large is your team?

How much do they travel?

Do they always travel to the same areas, or are they constantly heading off to new corners of the world?

Does your team need flexibility, personalization, and reporting?

The best online accommodation service for you

If you have a small team that travels infrequently to far-off corners of the world, a combination of meta-search and OTA channels is the way to go. You can save a large amount of time by using these channels to search, review, and finally reserve accommodation in unfamiliar locations. Most likely all the local accommodation options are represented on these meta-search and OTA channels, and pricing is generally competitive. Although it must be pointed out that the assumption that OTAs always offer the lowest prices is a false one.

If you have a medium-sized team or large team that travels frequently to the same area or areas of the world, using the online services of a local accommodation provider will be your best option. Over the length of your relationship, because they know your team’s needs and desires, they can offer flexible, personalized solutions to your problems. For example, best-price guarantees, personalized service packages, billing and reporting are all services which can and should be provided online.

For extremely large international corporations, with teams that travel both locally and to far-off corners of the world, corporate travel platforms may be your best option. They can offer standards around the world, as they filter out hotels that don’t match their service. Of course, the downside to standards is that the effort to reduce the chances of negative surprises also reduces the chances of positive surprises. Corporate travel platforms also offer reporting, which is a huge benefit for huge teams. The reality is that the larger your team is and the more they travel, the more difficult it is to effectively manage travel on a corporate level. Individual hotel, hostel and small serviced apartment providers generally can’t meet your online service needs.

Managing corporate travel online can be easy

Although there are a million options out there, managing corporate travel doesn’t need to be a headache. Choosing the right accommodation provider with the right selection of online services will go a long way towards making your life easy again.

Here at Forenom, our customer service is famous for being friendly, flexible and professional. So, we started an internal competition: Which service is friendlier, our customer service or our online services? Last year we started an overhaul of our online services, and we’re still going hard. If you’d like to know what online services we can offer you, feel free to get in touch with me.